TOO MUCH MONEY IS NOT GOOD FOR OUR CRICKET

Oct 09, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

It is most likely that negotiations will now take place between Digicel, the West Indies Cricket Board and the Stanford Group to try to salvage a compromise that would allow the big-money game between the Stanford Superstars and England to be played as scheduled.

The match was placed in doubt following a dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board and Digicel over the rights that the latter had as the official sponsor of the West Indies cricket team.

Talks were held to resolve the matter but no solution was arrived and thus it headed to the London Court of International Arbitration which we are told has ruled in favour of Digicel.

I now expect the Stanford Group to increase the advertising and branding rights offered to Digicel as part of a compromise.

I expect a solution would be forthcoming since it would be in the interest of all parties to so agree. I know also that a great many cricket fans are hoping that the match will take place.

However, my wish is that the negotiations fail and that the match is called off. I repeat, I do not wish to see this big-money match take place.

I do not think it will be good for West Indian cricket and for cricket as a whole for such sums of money to be offered for a single 20/20 match.

I have always felt that players should be paid more. When Kerry Packer came and lured a great many of our players to his league in Australia, I was opposed to it since it divided our West Indian team.

I concede, however, that had it not been for Kerry Packer, cricketers would never have been paid the sort of money that they deserved and subsequently earned.

However, what is now being offered for a single game by the Stanford Group and by those involved in the Indian Professional League is way too much.

There is now defiantly too much money at stake. It is simply unbelievable that one single match can have a purse of US$20M.

Each player on the winning team would receive a whopping two hundred million Guyana dollars each and for less than three hours work.

Now that is taking it a bit too far. Such large sums of money is going to change cricket and not necessarily for the best. I am afraid I cannot support that.

I have already seen the backbiting that is taking place in local cricket since Stanford kicked off his regional 20/20 tournament, which had a prize money of US$1M.

The members of the Guyanese team that won the first tournament are now rich persons. But the competition to get into the team so as to earn the big bucks now being offered is creating a culture that is unhealthy for cricket.

I think we need to professionalize sports in the West Indies but what we do not need to do is move along the lines of professional sports in the United States where in those sports where there are big bucks to be earned, it is only a small number of players that break into the big league and in the overwhelming majority of cases, most of the players are overpriced.

This is not the sort of professionalism that we want in the Caribbean. We need our athletes to earn their fair share. But we do not need the level of commercialization that would lead to unhealthy and selfish attitudes within cricket.

It is inevitable, and take my word for it, that so long as these huge pay days are on offer, it is only a matter of time before cricket boards throughout the Caribbean and around the world become extinct.

The next thing that is going to happen is that cricket teams will, like their counterparts in other high-paying sports in the United States and Europe, be owned by investors, thereby removing an important link with the public and the grassroots which for so long have been the backbone of regional cricket.

It is only a matter of time before corporate interests take over all aspects of our cricket. Those who understand and appreciate what cricket means to us in the West Indies will want to avoid us going down that route because then cricket will be broken from its historical and social roots.
We need to save West Indies cricket from such a fate.

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